We performed a comparison between Palo Alto Networks and pfSense based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: pfSense has an edge in this comparison as it is a free, open-source solution while Palo Alto Networks is considered expensive by its users.
"The most important features of Fortinet FortiGate are the Intrusion Prevention System (IPS) and firewall control applications."
"The web filtering feature and the intrusion protection system are the most valuable. It is a resilient appliance. I never had an issue with it in terms of any security breaches."
"It's quite comfortable to handle the FortiGate firewall."
"What's most important is the ease of use."
"Virtual Domains (VDOMs) are a feature that we found valuable."
"Overall security features and performance routing is good."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is the analytics."
"Fortinet FortiGate protects against internet-based threats, both internal and external. It is scalable, stable, easy to use, and easy to install."
"The solution is very robust."
"The solution has good customization abilities and plenty of features."
"My company mainly works in the health and educational domain, schools and universities. I prevent the improper use of content from schools and universities. I defend the medical records for the patients in our hospitals. That is the main use case for me for the firewall."
"It is a better firewall than others and it has better features."
"For everyday tasks, we just get alerts. It's anything that's suspicious, including from our Netgate. So, it's part of how we maintain cybersecurity in our school. This is working alongside our endpoint security solution."
"I have found the firewall portion for the blocking most valuable."
"Super easy to manage. Anyone who has been working with firewalls can handle it."
"We can run it on any hardware."
"I found Palo Alto NG firewalls more intuitive compared to other products. I value the capability to identify a cloud solution."
"Their Prisma log collection is pretty great. Our product collects the logs, and it definitely makes the configuration of log collection easier."
"It has a unique approach to packet processing. It has single-pass architecture. We can easily perform policy lookups, application decoding, and integration or merging. This can be all done with a single pass. It effectively reduces the amount of processing required to perform multiple actions. This is the main advantage of using Palo Alto."
"Everything is easy in Palo Alto Networks NG Firewall. It is very stable, easy to configure, and easy to upgrade. It is also very easy to create custom policies and applications. Everything can be done with the click of a button. It is also good for the protection of web services. Nowadays, they have a rather new DNS security feature, which is pretty good and functional. We did a one-month trial, and it is the best product for the firewall network."
"The stability of the product has been good over the years."
"We have found the SSL decryption within this solution to be great; you can enable this feature and have the ability to see more of what is happening across your network."
"The interface and dashboards are good."
"Flexible and integrates well with apps and other security tools."
"There are some tiny bugs that sometimes affect the operations. In the past revision of it, there was a bug. Because of the bug, we had to downgrade the version. It happened only with the last revision."
"Pricing for it is a bit high. It could be cheaper."
"Web security solutions can be improved."
"One area for improvement is the performance on bandwidth demands for smaller devices, as well as better web filtering."
"It should have a better pricing plan. It is too expensive. It should also have a more granular view of the attack. I don't have FortiAnalyzer, and it is difficult for me to have a complete view when there is an attack on my server."
"MTBF: Hardware failure is more common when compared to SonicWall or Cisco ASA."
"The ease of use could be improved."
"We would like to see a better training platform implemented."
"I tried pfSense, and it has a big issue with file system consistency, and this is what drove me to OPNsense. The file system stability is quite a big issue for us. We have a lot of outages related to power issues, and OPNsense is much more stable on this side."
"The user interface can be improved to make it easier to add more features. And pfSense could be better integrated with other solutions, like antivirus."
"The integration should be improved."
"I would like to see pfSense integrate WireGuard. Currently, pfSense uses OpenVPN, and there's nothing wrong with it, but WireGuard is a lot leaner and meaner."
"It would be great to add more to security."
"The GUI could use improvements, though it is manageable."
"The solution could use better reporting. They need to offer more of it in general. Right now, the graphics aren't the best. If you need to provide a report to a manager, for example, it doesn't look great. They need to make it easier to understand and give users the ability to customize them."
"The solution could improve by having centralized management and API support online."
"Its software updates can be improved. It sometimes becomes very slow with the software updates for different features. It should have an External Dynamic List of data. The malicious IP is not frequently getting updated in Palo Alto, and this should be done."
"The price of the solution is very high."
"PA-220 Next-Generation Firewall would be perfect if it has spam filtering."
"The stability, scalability for enterprise-level organizations, and technical documentation have room for improvement."
"I wish that the Palos had better system logging for the hardware itself."
"The solution needs some management tool enhancements. It could also use more reporting tools."
"The solution would benefit from having a dashboard."
"There is a bit of limitation with its next-generation capabilities. They could be better. In terms of logs, I feel like I am a bit limited as an administrator. While I see a lot of logs, and that is good, it could be better."
More Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls Pricing and Cost Advice →
Netgate pfSense is ranked 1st in Firewalls with 128 reviews while Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls is ranked 6th in Firewalls with 162 reviews. Netgate pfSense is rated 8.6, while Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls is rated 8.6. The top reviewer of Netgate pfSense writes "User-friendly, easy to manage the firewall, rule-wise and interface-wise". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls writes "We get reports back from WildFire on a minute-by-minute basis". Netgate pfSense is most compared with OPNsense, Sophos XG, KerioControl, Sophos UTM and Check Point NGFW, whereas Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls is most compared with Check Point NGFW, Azure Firewall, Meraki MX, Sophos XG and Cisco Secure Firewall. See our Netgate pfSense vs. Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls report.
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